The present invention relates to an ice supplying apparatus to be provided for enabling to supply ice pieces, which are produced by an ice making assembly provided within a freezer chamber, outside a freezer door, and it also relates to a refrigerator having the same ice supplying apparatus therein.
Conventionally is already known a refrigerator, enabling to supply ice pieces, which are produced by an ice making assembly provided within a freezer chamber, outside the freezer door being. Such the refrigerator is provided with an ice supplying apparatus having an ice storage portion or bin for storing therein the ice pieces, which are produced by the ice maker, and in that ice storage bin is provided an ice dispenser assembly for dispensing the ice pieces downwards. The refrigerator of kind is disclosed, for example, the following Patent Documents.
Within the ice supplying apparatus shown in the Patent Document 1, the ice pieces stored in the ice storage bin are transferred horizontally towards the freezer door in the mode of being pushed out in the horizontal direction by a transfer member.
However, with this ice supplying apparatus, since it transfers the ice pieces, horizontally, by means of the transfer member, there is a drawback that it is not always possible to apply a force, preferably, for the purpose of pushing out the ice pieces, depending on the position of the ice pieces.
For dissolving such the drawback, with the ice supplying apparatus disclosed in the Patent Document 2, an ice discharger portion (i.e., an ice outlet opening) is provide on a bottom surface of the ice storage bin for storing the ice pieces therein, so that the ice pieces can be supplied or dispensed in such a manner of falling downwards from that discharger portion.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-315571 (2005); and    [Patent Document 2] U.S. Pat. No. 6,425,259 (2002), Nelson et al.